Gunfire kills young girl, wounds another

Victims were playing jump-rope outside home

Two young girls playing jump-rope were caught in gang gunfire Tuesday evening, killing one in front of their family's longtime home in the Roseland neighborhood, authorities and family members said.

Chicago police said Tuesday night that a 9-year-old girl was dead and her 7-year-old relative had suffered a gunshot wound. However, Keauna Wise, a close relative of the girls, said the slain child was 8 and the injured girl was 6.

Deputy Superintendent Ernest Brown said the shots rang out at about 8 p.m. at 107th Street and Indiana Avenue after two males approached the area on bicycles.

A third girl was injured by glass at the scene, Wise said.

Wise said nearly 10 children were playing in front of the home, which has been in the family for nearly 50 years, when offenders approached on bicycles and opened fire.

Several women were on the porch.

"We were sitting on the porch watching them jump rope,'' said Wise, a relative of both girls. "And (they) just started shooting. It was nobody out there but women and kids."

Wise, 33, described the girls as cousins. She said the slain girl had fallen to the ground after the gunfire and was not moving. Wise then hit the ground as well, and she crawled down the stairs trying to get to the children.

The shooting comes two weeks after 13-year-old Robert Freeman Jr. was shot down on a summer evening in West Pullman, about a mile and a half away on the 11500 block of South Perry Avenue.

Wise said the slain girl was a third-grader. Wise, choking back tears, said the girl loved singing and dancing — and was often helpful around the home.

"She helped me do anything I ever needed," Wise said. "Clean around the house. Get the kids up ready for school."

Officials are investigating whether a fight about 20 minutes earlier might have led to the shooting, one of the police sources said.

But Wise said nothing preceded the shooting. The teens just suddenly appeared and started shooting, she said.